STATEMENT: USC Ends Partnership with 2U After Graduate Social Work Students Sue Over Online MSW “Diploma Mill”
Students allege that USC misleads students about its expensive online master’s degree program and obscures the fact that its program is actually run by a for-profit education company
BOSTON (November 10, 2023) – The University of Southern California (USC) and for-profit education company 2U announced yesterday that they would end their long-running partnership. The announcement comes after graduates of USC’s online Master’s in Social Work program, which is largely outsourced to 2U, filed a lawsuit against USC in May 2023.
The complaint in that lawsuit states that USC deliberately deceives students by claiming that its online MSW program is the “same” academic program as USC’s long-standing on-campus program other than in format, including by charging the same very high tuition (over $100,000) for both programs. In fact, the complaint alleges, USC hides that its online MSW program is outsourced almost entirely to 2U, a for-profit education company. After 2U apparently collected more than half of students’ tuition payments for this program for over a decade, public reports now indicate that 2U will additionally walk away from its USC partnership with a nearly $26 million payment from USC.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiff students are seeking a return of money they overpaid and to stop USC from deceiving online MSW students moving forward.
Statement from Eileen Connor, President and Director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending:
“For years, USC has used its brand to deliberately deceive unsuspecting students to create a ‘cash cow’, operating a misleading online MSW program at students’ expense. It shouldn’t have required a lawsuit for USC to recognize that this partnership is not worth the cost to students, but this should serve as a lesson to other colleges and universities that treating students as profit centers is not the path forward. We’re proud of our clients for calling out USC’s wrongdoing and helping to prevent others from being similarly cheated going forward. However, USC ending this partnership with 2U does not end this lawsuit, and we will continue to work alongside our clients on this case to ensure they are made whole and USC does not continue to deceive online MSW students.”
Background:
Graduates of USC’s online Master’s in Social Work (MSW) program filed a class action lawsuit against USC in May 2023 for misrepresentation, false advertising, and other deceptive, unfair and unlawful business practices.
The complaint alleges that, although USC claims that its online MSW program is exactly the same as the campus-based program, it is not. According to the complaint, program resources, including faculty, course offerings and content, field placements, academic advising, and career services are all different for the online MSW students. Worse, the complaint alleges, USC uses aggressive and predatory tactics to enroll students in the expensive online MSW program, including racial targeting.
The case, Stephanie Luna v. University of Southern California, was filed in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. The plaintiff students are represented by attorneys from The Project on Predatory Student Lending and the San Francisco-based public interest law firm Altshuler Berzon LLP. The putative class includes all California citizens who are or have been USC online MSW students at any time from four years before the filing of the complaint up through when final judgment is entered in the case.
The complaint alleges that in its partnership with 2U, USC turned its online MSW program into a large-scale diploma mill. USC’s MSW program grew from enrolling 300 total students per cohort prior to 2010 to enrolling over 3,000 students, almost entirely through online growth, creating tremendous revenue for USC.
The filing details several ways in which USC targeted and misled students about its online MSW program, including:
USC repeatedly, to this day, describes its online MSW program as exactly “the same” as the on-campus program, when in fact the instructors, content, curriculum, advising, field placements, and career placement are different and often outsourced.
USC sells its program by claiming that the online students will be taught by its esteemed faculty, when in reality students are taught by contingent employees who had been retained specifically to teach online courses.
USC sells its program by claiming that students will receive the same curriculum and coursework as its cutting-edge and respected on-campus program, when in reality online students are given pre-recorded, outdated coursework.
USC tells students they will have access to USC’s respected and well-resourced clinical placement programs and staff, but online students’ clinical placements and career counseling are run by 2U, Inc.
Students interact with “counselors” and other staff they believed to be employees of USC, with USC email addresses, who are actually employees of 2U, Inc.
USC permits recruiters, employed by 2U, Inc. to pose as USC employees when they are not and to use high-pressure sales tactics to drive up enrollment (and thus revenue to USC and its corporate partner). These tactics have included outright lies about the program, about scholarships and clinical placements that were not available to online students, and other misrepresentations.
Finally, the program has been deliberately marketed toward people of color and veterans, as USC viewed these prospective students as better marks for “conversion”—that is, more likely to enroll once they were in touch with an “admissions counselor” (recruiter).
About the Project on Predatory Student Lending
The Project on Predatory Student Lending (PPSL) is the leading legal organization representing student borrowers against predatory for-profit colleges and the policies that enable institutions to exploit and cheat students. PPSL uses bold, strategic litigation and advocacy to demand accountability in the higher education space and influence policy solutions to create a more just and affordable education system. PPSL represents more than one million student borrowers and its work has resulted in cancellation of more than $16 billion of fraudulent student loan debt.
Altshuler Berzon LLP is a San Francisco law firm dedicated to providing the highest quality representation in the service of economic justice and the public interest.
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